Hello, and thank you for your comment. My apologies on the 3 day delay to respond, I hadn't seen someone posted a comment on my guide until now.

I'm glad someone agrees with me on Blade of the Ruined King as it is indeed an overrated item.

Now, onto the bans.

I believe you shouldn't waste your ban on Renekton. You actually counter him, so you're denying yourself a free matchup. You can block Renekton's Ruthless Predator, you can win short trades using that and you hard outscale him. The champion is popular but never blind picked. No one will and should not pick him into Jax.

I have several bans that all depend on my mood; which champion I simply do not want to see in that time. The champions that I most often don't want to see are Gragas, Fiora, Illaoi, Malphite and lastly, Pantheon. All these champions have the same characteristic that makes me not want to play into them; they deny interactivity. When you jump on any of these champions or even trade a single auto attack, they have tools to make you regret that decision by denying the attack altogether. Only Fiora is not that bad in terms of denying interactivity. The matchup is a skill one after all, however I heavily despise this champion and so I don't enjoy playing into it for the sole reason that her Riposte will cripple you (slow as and ms) regardless of whether she stuns you or not. Illaoi cannot be engaged onto, she will hard win and turn the fight after level 6, every single time.

What you ban should comes down to which champions deny you the most interactivity in lane and post-lane, as they counter your champion the most. While there are 10+ examples of this, choose based off of pickrate and which champions you are unable to deal with the most. Gragas top has died off in popularity, and so I rarely ban him anymore as I haven't seen the pick in forever. I recommend banning either:

Pantheon. It is extremely hard to win against him as you don't even outscale him anymore until maybe 4 items. This item count is not very realistic to attain in most games as you will most likely be set back by this champion as you cannot lane into him. (Spear Shot has popularized this pick and is hence very prominent toplane, mostly due to him)

Malphite because the matchup is only winnable before 2nd recall (before level 6) and because he hard outscales you.

Singed. A good player piloting that champion is quite the worst possible matchup ever.

There are other honorable mentions like Quinn and Kennen as you mentioned, however nobody plays these champions and are consequently not worth banning.

Hopefully I answered your question on who to ban. If not, you may ask what I didn't answer/is unclear.

Good luck!

Thank you for the kind words! I hope this guide helps you out!

Hello!

Thank you for commenting! Hopefully this response proves to be helpful.

As you and I both know, Lethal Tempo gives you Attack Speed the more you attack a champion. Grasp of the Undying is a rune taken to enhance lane trading in matchups where you cannot reliably auto attack your enemy. The best few examples I can give are Gragas, Riven and Malphite. These 3 champs all deny Jax any interaction. Do note these aren't the only match-up's, there are more.

Gragas cannot be Q'd on or be E'd in melee range, he will simply E into you (and proc Phase Rush to run if he has that). It really doesn't matter what you take into him as you'll never be able to kill a good Gragas. The champ hard counters Jax and no saving grace will help you kill him.

A good Riven player can EW away in quick succession from Jax if he ever Q's onto her. Later on this wont be that big of an issue anymore, however it will be detrimental in lane.

Lastly, Malphite can be lept on, however his E reduces attack speed so much that it's hard to get in 2+ auto's in, making Lethal Tempo redundant into him.


Now, as to why I believe you shouldn't take Grasp of the Undying.
It mostly comes down to one thing and that thing is that it hurts scaling really hard. This rune is taken to enhance laning slightly, in hopes of ending the game soon. This is what pros and very high elo players play for, the early game. Most notably Chinese and Korean players. Later on, regardless of your matchup, Lethal Tempo will always be better, however Chinese and Korean players dont play for the late game. They want to end as fast as possible and thus will not use Lethal Tempo's scaling power, nor can they make use of Lethal Tempo's power in lane. If it won't ever be used, why take it? Essentially.

Nearly every SoloQ game in any other region and elo below GM+ will generally take around/longer than 20 minutes. So if you manage to not throw the entire laning phase, you'll be stronger later on regardless of items too. Lethal Tempo on its own will make you a menace to deal with in the sidelane. Not to mention that slip ups happen all the time in SoloQ. Even in match-up's where you shouldn't be able to ever get on top of your opponent, let alone kill them, you can and will be able to, simply because it's SoloQ and people aren't very good.

In conclusion: Grasp of the Undying is taken in the higher elo's & major asian regions because they play for the early game and help you survive the difficult lane match-up's by trading with single Empower + Grasp procs, if at all. Lethal Tempo scales better and is better in every regard once laning is over, which you most likely will be able to achieve in a majority of your games.

Let me know if there's a question of yours I didn't answer or something needs to be clarified! Take care!

Hello!

First of all, thank you for replying. I'll do my best to explain as to why i'm not a fan of Blade of the Ruined King.

TL;DR: Blade of the Ruined King is easily countered by Bramble Vest, offers worse stats than Divine Sunderer and Black Cleaver, weakens you in teamfights and allows you to only really sidelane in succession (in the right match-ups, provided the enemy doesn't stack armor. Black Cleaver would counter this type of champion.

It isn't that Blade of the Ruined King doesn't synergize with Jax; it's rather that this item is quite overrated, perhaps misunderstood and quite disrespected. Despite people knowing what Blade of the Ruined King does, people STILL engage in short trades with it. You shouldn't do this as you'd lose your entire first half of your hp bar for no real merit. Now, while it was a very rushable option before, it's been nerfed to where it's not AS viable anymore, making Divine Sunderer a more consistent and stronger item to build first. Seriously, you can't ever go wrong building this item; it's overpowered. Blade of the Ruined King, like I mentioned in my guide, only really does damage in the first few seconds of combat, whereas Divine Sunderer and Black Cleaver offer better stats, deals consistent damage throughout fights, regardless of the enemies' hp, while still offering that bit of healing assuming you have Divine Sunderer. It is perfectly fine to sit on a Vamp Scepter throughout the game to partly receive the healing which Blade of the Ruined King provides, in the case that you feel your lifesteal is lackluster. It takes a bit of skill to play around that healing, as opposed to being able to perma heal on every hit with Blade of the Ruined King. Lastly, Blade of the Ruined King offers no defensive stats. Rushing this item implies that you'll be sitting in sidelanes, due to this item being a 1v1 oriented item. In teamfights, you'd blow up too fast for it to provide any significant value over the other item's listed.

Now, let me address your points. You make some good points about Blade of the Ruined King that are definitely not wrong. However, let me explain my reasoning once more behind my dislike for Blade of the Ruined King.

The Mana Issue
About the mana issue you mentioned, Blade of the Ruined King doesn't resolve this issue. If anything, if you play using this item, chances are you're seeking to take every fight known to man. Also, I didn't state you should rush Ravenous Hydra. I believe Jax doesn't suffer from mana issues if his enemies die in 1-2 spell rotations. Tanky enemies do make it troublesome for him, which is what I wrote down in my guide. That's your queue to take some mana items, like a Frozen Heart or simply a singular Mana Crystal.

The Attack Speed part
Jax, items aside, has 4 ways already of increasing his attack speed. You should be going Lethal Tempo in 99.9% of your games, paired with Legend: Alacrity and the +10% Attack Speed Shard. Jax his passive, Relentless Assault also gives him attack speed for every stack up to 8 hits. These 4 sources of AS on its own gives you enough attack speed for the time being, until you get something along the lines of Wit's End to sate your hunger for even more attack speed. However, the latter part isn't mandatory.

The movement speed
Honestly, you make a fair point here. The few arguments I can make for this is that:

1. You could settle for the +10 Additional MS given from Magical Footwear.

2. You could opt for Wit's End and/or Force of Nature because of those items giving ludicrous amounts of movement speed. The glaring issue with these items though is that the enemy must be AP in order for you to build them.

3. You do not need additional movement speed due to Jax having a very low cooldown gap closer, namely Leap Strike, his Q or because he has the 2nd highest base MS in the game, tied with some other champions like Olaf and only faling behind Master Yi and some other inconsistent occurences AFAIK.

I hope this made my point clearer as to why I believe Blade of the Ruined King to be a mistake on Jax. Let me know if something wasn't clear, should be rephrased or if additional information is needed. I will read every comment posted on this guide in the future. Perhaps, let me know if shorter replies are also wished for. I tend to write everything down that comes to mind in the moment.

Take care!